Canada tells Obama administration to stop delaying and make Keystone XL pipeline decision...

Canada tell Obama to sh*t or get off the pot on Keystone XL pipeline decision...

Via Reuters

Canada bluntly told the United States on Thursday to settle the fate of TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, saying the drawn-out process on whether to approve the northern leg of the project was taking too long.
The hard-line comments by Foreign Minister John Baird were the clearest sign yet that Canada’s Conservative government has lost patience over what it sees as U.S. foot-dragging.
Baird also conceded that Washington might veto the project, the first admission of its kind by a Canadian government minister.
The 1,200-mile (1,930-km) pipeline would carry 830,000 barrels a day from the Alberta tar sands in western Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. Ottawa strongly backs Keystone XL, which it says would create jobs and provide a secure supply of oil to Canada’s closest ally and trading partner.
“The time for Keystone is now. I’ll go further – the time for a decision on Keystone is now, even if it’s not the right one. We can’t continue in this state of limbo,” Baird said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Only 11% of those who signed up for Obamacare were previously uninsured?

This is a massive fail. It is likely that more people are uninsured now than before Obamacare was enacted. 

Via Forbes:

At the end of the day, for all of the rhetoric and promises about what Obamacare would achieve, the health law’s most ardent supporters have stuck to their guns because of one thing: coverage expansion. But new data suggests that Obamacare may fail even to achieve this goal. Instead of expanding coverage to those without it, Obamacare is replacing the pre-existing market for private insurance. Surveys from insurers and other industry players indicate that as few as 11 percent of those on Obamacare’s exchanges were previously uninsured. If these trends continue, the probability increases that Obamacare will eventually get repealed.
The latest reporting on this topic comes from Christopher Weaver and Anna Wilde Mathews of the Wall Street Journal. They cite several industry surveys on the coverage history of those signing up for insurance on the Obamacare exchanges.

Strange: Nun has baby. Names baby Francesco.

This is going to start a lot of gossip and provide fodder for conspiracy theorists. 

A nun who was rushed to hospital complaining of acute stomach pains has given birth to a baby boy – and named him Francesco after the Pope.

The 31-year-old nun began to feel severe abdominal cramps on Wednesday and gave birth just a few hours later.

The discovery of her pregnancy has embarrassed the Catholic Church in Italy, with the local bishop saying that she will have to leave her convent in Rieti, north of Rome, after breaking her vow of chastity.

"It would be preferable that she now lead a secular life with her baby, away from religious institutions," said a spokesman for Delio Lucarelli, bishop of Rieti.

The nun, who is from El Salvador, had kept her pregnancy a secret and even as she was being taken to hospital in an ambulance denied that she could be pregnant.

Here is the list of 29 things we know the NSA can do.

Obama only addressed two?

Via wNYC:

• It can track the numbers of both parties on a phone call, as well location, time and duration. (More)
• It can hack Chinese phones and text messages. (More)
• It can set up fake internet cafes. (More)
• It can spy on foreign leaders' cell phones. (More)
• It can tap underwater fiber-optic cables. (More)
• It can track communication within media organizations like Al Jazeera. (More)
• It can hack into the UN video conferencing system. (More)
• It can track bank transactions. (More)
• It can monitor text messages. (More)
• It can access your email, chat, and web browsing history. (More)
• It can map your social networks. (More)
• It can access your smartphone app data. (More)
• It is trying to get into secret networks like Tor, diverting users to less secure channels. (More)
• It can go undercover within embassies to have closer access to foreign networks. (More)
• It can set up listening posts on the roofs of buildings to monitor communications in a city. (More)
• It can set up a fake LinkedIn. (More)
• It can track the reservations at upscale hotels. (More)
• It can intercept the talking points for Ban Ki-moon’s meeting with Obama. (More)
• It can crack cellphone encryption codes. (More)
• It can hack computers that aren’t connected to the internet using radio waves. (Update: Clarification -- the NSA can access offline computers through radio waves on which it has already installed hidden devices.) (More)
• It can intercept phone calls by setting up fake base stations. (More)
• It can remotely access a computer by setting up a fake wireless connection. (More)
• It can install fake SIM cards to then control a cell phone. (More)
• It can fake a USB thumb drive that's actually a monitoring device. (More)
• It can crack all types of sophisticated computer encryption. (Update: It is trying to build this capability.) (More)
• It can go into online games and monitor communication. (More)
• It can intercept communications between aircraft and airports. (More)
• (Update) It can physically intercept deliveries, open packages, and make changes to devices. (More) (h/t)
• (Update) It can tap into the links between Google and Yahoo data centers to collect email and other data. (More) (h/t)

Michael Mann on CAGW skeptics, "a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-established science,"

A fringe majority?

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — THE overwhelming consensus among climate scientists is that human-caused climate change is happening. Yet a fringe minority of our populace clings to an irrational rejection of well-established science. This virulent strain of anti-science infects the halls of Congress, the pages of leading newspapers and what we see on TV, leading to the appearance of a debate where none should exist.

Most people, including me, do believe it is warmer now than it was 100 years ago, but that doesn't mean we believe anything strange is going on. Climates change. That is what they do. We are currently in a warming period. This is a part of a cycle that has repeated many times in the past. Warming is much preferable to another ice age. The last ice age almost wiped humans out according to scientists and may have actually drove Neanderthals to extinction. The number that believes man is primarily responsible for global warming is the fringe minority. 


Pew Research Center polls:

Barf Bag Alert: Richards Simmons Dance-Off In Support Of ObamaCare

I really didn't want to post this, but people have to know the level Team Obama will stoop to try and sell Obamacare.

Actual good news: Chechen rebel warlord who threatened to attack the Sochi Olympics is dead

I'll bet it didn't tale Putin 16 hours to make up his mind to approve this mission. 

Via CBS:

MOSCOW — A Chechen rebel warlord who has plagued the region for decades and most recently threatened to attack the Sochi Olympics is dead, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed strongman said Thursday, but he offered no proof and his claim couldn’t be verified.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said on his Instagram that Doku Umarov, who urged his fighters to strike the Games, had died — a claim he has made repeatedly in the past. The information about Umarov’s death came from intercepted communications between other rebel leaders who were discussing his replacement, he said, but he didn’t make clear when the conversation took place or how it was heard.
This time, however, multiple messages on Chechen jihadist web forums – including an audio recording from top Islamic sharia judge Abu Mohammed Ali Daghestani, who is affiliated with Umarov’s movement, confirmed his death.
Messages posted on Chechen militant blog sites suggested he was killed in an operation by Russian special forces, but none gave a time or specific place for the alleged killing.
Keep on reading…

Oregon country enrolls inmates in Obamacare to get federal subsidies...

This is what happens when lawmakers pass an 2000 page bill without reading it. Unexpected cost shifting...

Backers have promoted the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion as a way to reduce health care costs for many Americans.
Multnomah County officials expect national health care reform to cut the county's medical bills, too.
By enrolling jail inmates in nationally subsidized healthcare -- best known as "Obamacare" to both the President and his critics -- the county could bill the federal government for the cost of providing some of them medical care.
County health department officials briefed Multnomah County commissioners on the issue this week.
In addition to saving the county money, enrolling inmates in Obamacare would also mean a significant percentage will now have insurance when their jail stay is done.